Feral Dreams

They had estimated the size of the room to be around 20 feet by 10 feet to which they saw was an accurate guess. What they couldn't have foreseen, were the contents.

The light inside was blindingly bright, illuminating ever inch of the room and momentarily dazing them as their eyes adjusted from the dull hallway lights. Unfortunately, once their eyes adjusted to the new lighting, it was impossible to take back what had been seen. People of all ages and types, children, teenagers, adults, the elderly, men and women, all of them were strapped up against the walls into standing positions with solid metal bands so that they couldn't fight back or move. Each person had a band across their forehead, one across their chest, one across their waist, binding their hands into metal gloves, and one over each knee which prevented them from bending. In front of each person along the wall, there was an IV drip set up and hooked into their arms. Along the middle of the room there were three hospital beds covered in extensive leather straps as well as a what were quite obviously blood stains, both new and old.

Kiba immediately fell to the ground retching, the potent smell of death, blood and waste overpowering his sensitive nose, meanwhile Sasuke who stood beside him remained impassive , only taking a step to the side to avoid the newly forming puddle. Hinata couldn't bring herself to look after the first glance, so she stepped to the side of the door, sadly looking over her companions faces and reactions. Sakura's eyes flared in rage as she quickly tried to step past Naruto into the room, but was brought to a stop when his arm came out to halt her.

"Move Naruto!" She spoke with venom, obviously expecting her demands to be met, but he didn't retract his arm. Sasuke and Hinata looked at him with a mixture of awe and curiosity as to why he was trying to stop Sakura, especially given the current situation.

"...lm....wn." He mumbled, as he stared vacantly at the ground.

"What?! I told you to move." Her voice wasn't loud, but carried her demand clearly.

He closed his eyes and drew a slow, deep breath, then spoke calmly, his eyes still shut, "Sakura, I need you to calm down. If you go in there like you are now, then you wont be able to help them.

She stopped a moment to process what he had said, he was right, she needed to calm down, to help anyone in there, she had to keep her cool. Her fury faded down to a simmering anger, allowing her to step back a step from his arm.

He looked up at her as she stepped back and smiled sadly, he wished that she wasn't their medical expert so he wouldn't have to force her to experience this. "Sakura, do a quick examination of as many as you can, I want a report in three minutes. We're running out of time so do what you can."

She appraised him for a moment, starring at him intently, "Thanks." she said quietly, before walking past him into the room.

Naruto watched her quickly move from person to person and sighed before turning back to the others. "Hinata, take care of Kiba, the smell is apparently to much for him, Sasuke, come with me."

"Hai, Naruto-kun." Replied Hinata quietly as she moved up beside Kiba and proceeded to drag him away from the door.

Naruto looked back at the two of them a moment before turning back and walking into the open doorway, closely followed by Sasuke.

Inside was a nightmare, even though drains lined the walls and more were in the center of the room, the smell of waste and other fluids was overpowering. He glanced along the walls, counting the forms, 25 all told and just from the cursory glance he could tell, more than half of them were long since dead.

He moved closer to the first person on the right wall, an elderly looking man, his eyes having rolled back into his head, pallid loose skin and his obvious lack of expanding chest made it obvious the man was dead. Forcing open the mans mouth, he could see the telltale signs of a large dose of high toxicity poison, the mans tongue was completely black with necrosis, as was the top of his mouth. Turning to the side, he saw that the IV bag that was still hooked to the mans arm was empty, save for the residue of a mottled purple liquid.

Naruto examined the bands that bound the man to the wall, each piece was fit into slides in the wall so that they could be easily adjusted to fit a persons height. The bands also appeared to be somewhat modular to allow them to compensate for thinner or fatter individuals.

He felt a hand be placed on his arm just below the shoulder, expecting Saukra, he turned with a note of surprise to find Hinata standing somewhat fearfully behind him.

"Hinata?" He was confused that she would enter such a horrible place, her first reaction had given him the impression that she would rather eat spiders than walk into this place. Realizing he was staring, he quickly followed through with a different question, "What about Kiba?"

"He said he'll be fine," She looked down to escape what she saw as an intense glare, while in actuality he was just surprised, "he just can't come in here, the smell is to strong for him."

He put his hand on her shoulder, glad that she was able to overcome her own fears and was about to tell her something along those lines before Sakura's voice broke the silence in the room.

"Get over here, this one's alive!"

Sasuke was the first one at her side, followed closely by Naruto and Hinata from across the room. They gathered in front of the petit frame of a little girl, probably no more than nine or ten years old, she was around four and a half feet tall with long black hair that covered her face and her skin was tinged grey, but she was still breathing. Just like the others, she wore what seemed like a soiled white gown that came down to her knees, the stains of having been left to stand for days on end completely visible.

Sakura grabbed both sides of the band across her head and bent it open with the high screech of metal being forcefully bent. The girls head lolled down to her chest where Sakura then straightened her neck and gently placed her left hand over the girls face as she channeled chakra into her palm. A moment later, the girl spasmed violently and began to vomit a thick grey sludge down her front. After several seconds more spasming and a few more spurts of the sludge, the girl slumped back against her supports, her skin lightening to more of a sickly pale.

"I forced her body to expel the poisons using chakra. It hurts like hell and dehydrates the person, but it works well." She stated matter of factly, as if to answer everyone's silent questions.

Naruto nodded to her in understanding, "Go see if anyone else is alive, I'll deal with the rest here." Sakura nodded and went back to examining the others. He looked up at Sasuke, "Hey bastard, grab the other side and help me pry these off."

The Uchiha glared at him, but immediately took up a position on the other side of him, gripping the band across her chest, "Ready when you are Na-chan." Naruto growled over the new nickname, but ignored it.

Hinata moved forward to support the girl as they began to rip the bands apart, one at a time. When they finished, Hinata picked up the tiny form of the girl and held her curled up in her arms. Naruto stepped up to look at the girl, brushing her long hair from face, he saw her eyes were tightly closed, but could see them moving beneath their lids, she was dreaming.

He slipped out a small canteen from his pocket and dripped it slowly onto the girl's cracked lips, the reaction was immediate as even in her sleep, she licked the water off her lips and tried to move her head in the direction of the water. The girl didn't have the strength to move her own neck properly, so Hinata propped her against her shoulder so that she was at a better angle to drink. Taking the hint, Naruto let a small stream of the water pour down onto her lips, though most of it poured down her chin or splattered onto Hinata, the girl kept swallowing however much fell into her mouth.

After another minute or so of the slow pouring water, Sakura returned and with a mournful shake of her head, answered the question that none of them had wanted to ask. Letting them continue to slow feed the girl water, Sakura began to analyze what type of damage the girl still had.

Guiding her hands from the girl's head to toes, she made a mental checklist of the various problems that she would face if she was able to recover properly. Her eyes opened with a sigh and looked to the two who seemed almost like dotting parents, tending to a sick child.

She let out a light cough to draw the others attention, "She has major ligament damage in her knees and wrists, her liver and kidneys have suffered long term damage due to exposure to high toxicity poisons, she has serious anemia as well as several dozen superficial internal and surface wounds, and..." Sakura looked away, she didn't want to say the last part, but she would need to, "And has undetermined damage from having been raped at least once."

Hinata hugged the girl to her chest protectively taken aback at the thought that something like that could happen to such a small girl. Naruto however had no idea what to do in the current situation, he just sat there like an idiot as Sasuke moved over to put a hand on Sakura's back and calm her.

Naruto stood up and looked around him in an attempt to distract himself from the topic on everyone elses minds, when his eyes fell on something odd. He walked off towards one of the people on the wall, leaving the others to tend to the girl for the moment.

As Hinata held the girl up against her shoulder, she felt her turn slightly and begin to snuggle into her chest. She looked down at the girl, both confused and afraid of what would happen if she woke up here, when she saw one of the girls eyes squinted open slightly. Obviously the girl had burst a blood vessel, because the only thing she could see through the open eyelid was red.

"Mommy?" The girls voice came in a dry rasp.

Naruto hadn't heard the girl, but the other two had as they moved in closer to see the her. As they moved in, seemingly in fright, the girl threw her arms around Hinata's neck and buried her face beneath her chin. Hinata, now completely confused was looking between the two of them for some kind of response, but they both looked equally dumbstruck.

"Hinata." Naruto's voice came from the corner, a hint of worry clearly audible. She looked up to him, one arm supporting the girl around her neck and the other one hanging to her side, uncertain as to what to do. "We have a problem." As he said this, he brushed aside the hair of a woman against the wall.

Hinata's eyes widened, the woman looked incredibly similar to her, the only real differences being a small amount of weight, Hinata was an inch or so taller, and the other woman had two moles beneath her eye. She looked down at the bundle of hair under her chin and back up to the woman on the wall, she could hardly even think to herself.

"Shit, shit, shit, I look just like this girls mother, what do I do now?" The thought screamed in her head as she began to panic while the girl only seemed to tighten her hold.

"Mommy, Sair wants to go home!" She could feel warm tears down her neck into her shirt, soaking in with the water that she'd been splashed with before. "Sair wanna see daddy, Sair don't wanna be near the bad men anymore." The girls sobs were quiet but heartrending.

Naruto waved to draw Hinata's attention, when she looked at him he pointed to the doorway, mouthing the word "outside". She understood what he meant, he didn't want the girl to see her real mother or the various other corpses, so she quietly stood, bringing her free hand to hold the girls head under her chin, and slowly walked out the door into the hallway. The other three followed quickly and closed the door behind them.

Kiba who was further down the hall keeping watch, eyed Hinata as she walked out with the small bundle and approached to question them.

"Kiba." Naruto said quietly as he came within a few feet of them, "Ask the questions later, now isn't the best time." Naruto walked around to Hinata's right side, ignoring Kiba's baffled look, and tapped the little girl lightly on the shoulder. She turned her head out from beneath Hinata's chin a bit and cracked open an eye, it was heavily red so he couldn't tell the girls natural eye color. He crouched down to be at the girls level and put his hand on Hinata's back to balance himself, she shifted a little in surprise but didn't force him off.

"Hello Sair." He tried his best to smile, but it felt almost like it was going to crack his face.

"Who're you?" She squeezed her arms tighter around Hinata whom was still uncertain as to how she should deal with this situation, so she just stood there and let the girl do what she wanted.

"Great, a grumpy child, perfect." Naruto thought to himself, but pushed the thoughts aside and continued anyway. "I'm Naruto, and we're all here to get you out of this place."

"No you're not, you just wanna hurt Sair and mommy more." She said in an accusatory tone as she wedged her head back beneath Hinata's chin.

Naruto really didn't feel like dealing with this right now, so he stated blandly "I'll tell you what kid,we have one more thing to do, then we're getting out of here." The girl turned her head back to look at Naruto in the same way she had before, "When we get outside, we'll talk about this again, but if you can be quiet until we're done, then when we get you back home I'll buy you a bowl of ramen." He expected to girl to give her same little harumph, and turn back into Hinata, but this time he was pleasantly surprised. The girl's head shot out and her eyes flared as she smiled happily at this idea, the others, except for Hinata who couldn't see, took a step back in reaction to the girls eyes.

The girl's eyes were a deep scarlet retina with no pupil, and the white part of her eye was heavily bloodshot, giving the impression of an entirely blood red eye. Thankfully she hadn't noticed their reactions as she looked up at Hinata with a pleading expression on her face, followed quickly by a confused one. "Mommy, can we? I'll be good, I... I... Mommy? What happened to your eyes?"

Once again being put on the spot, god was Hinata getting sick of this situation, "I'll tell you later, I promise... and yes we can, but you need to be quiet for now, okay?" The girl cocked her head inquisitively, but apparently accepted her answer and nodded fervently before curling up into the crook of her neck again.

Naruto was not looking forward to explaining to this little girl that her mother was dead, but for the moment, her acceptance was all they needed. But he wanted to make sure that she understood, so he walked moved around to behind Hinata so he could look into the girl's face.

"So, your name is Sair, right?" He asked, looking into her eyes.

"Yup, Sair is Sair." She replied in a happy tone that very much did not go with their current situation.

"Okay Sair, now remember, we need you to be very quiet until we get outside okay?" She nodded vigorously, answering his question. He smiled at her, her reactions seemed awfully similar to some things that he would have done when he was her age.

Naruto moved back around to in front of Hinata and began unbuckling his jacket much to the others curious stares. Once finished, Hinata's eyes widened in shock once again as Naruto draped the coat around her shoulders.

"N-N-Naruto, why are you giving this to me?" She felt embarrassed that he was putting something like his jacket over her.

"It's to protect you and Sair, now feed your arms through, I'll adjust the length." Almost unconsciously, she slid one arm at a time off of Sair and brought them through the jacket sleeves. Naruto bent down and grabbed two straps near her hips and pulled them up, apparently they rolled the jacket up from the inside to adjust the length of the bottom. After several seconds of adjustments, he tapped Sair on the back, having her turn to face him. "Sair, I want you to stay under that jacket at all times, okay?" She nodded to him again, still making sure not to make a sound.

Hinata still stared at him with dumbstruck eyes, "Ano, Naruto, am I supposed to carry her the whole time? How will I fight?"

"You wont."He looked her straight in the eyes, "You just need to protect her." He said, placing his hand on Sair's head and mussing her hair slightly.

He reached up and pressed the back of the earbead in, "Ten Ten, can you tell me what's going on around us and the last door?" An awkward, gurgling static buzzed into their ears, he figured it was interference because he could kind of hear some speech.

"Ten Ten, I can't hear you, repeat that."

The gurgling static continued for a little bit until it eventually stopped, leaving the com silent a moment before a cough was heard on the other end, followed by Ten Ten's voice, "Sorry about that, the clip came loose and it slipped off. What'd you want?"

He sighed in relief, glad that nothing was wrong and repeated his question to her. The radio went silent for a few moment afterwards before it perked up again with her reply, "There's nothing around you guys and it looks like it's a clear run to the sealed room, all the patrols seem to be moving away from there at the moment."

"Run? Why would we run there when we could be found at any moment while on foot."

Her voice came back a little surprised, "Well why wouldn't you? There's no one that'll be in the way and it's much faster than slowly snooping around."

He looked to the others, from the looks on their faces, Kiba and Sakura seemed to like the idea while Hinata was impartial, Sasuke however, shook his head to them in disagreement, "It may not have anyone now, but when it does, we'll have trouble."

"I agree, but we're also running out of time." He pressed in the earbead again to transit. "Give us the route Ten Ten."

Once again the radio delayed, but after several moments, the crackled back to life, "Follow the hallway on your right down about 50 meters, then turn left and there will be another right turn bout 20 meters down, after that the door is at the end of the hall."

"And you're sure that there are no patrols going through that area?" Naruto still needed to finish convincing Sasuke as well as himself that this was a safe idea.

"If their patrols keep the same schedule they've been following, then no one should be back there for at least 10 minutes. Just do what you need to fast and there should be no problems getting out."

Naruto and Sasuke looked to each other warily, they both knew that they needed to hurry up, but the risk was still hefty. After a moment, Sasuke slumped his shoulders and shook his head in annoyance, "Fine, fine, let's do this fast so we can be in and out before the patrols get back."

"Sounds good, Kiba, lead the way." Kiba nodded in response and started running off down the instructed hallway with the others close behind.

Naruto hung back to keep watch over Hinata, since she was running slower due to her load. After a completely uneventful minute of running, they arrived at what appeared to be a stone fire door, with no handle and several runes in its center. The door was in a deserted and disturbingly quiet corner of the facility, the floor was grimy with scuffled footprints, while the walls were coated in disturbing amounts of mold and mildew.

"Sasuke, crack the seal quickly. I don't like this place and don't want to be here longer than I need to be." Sasuke quickly moved to the door and started forcing chakra on different wavelengths into the seal to disable it, Sakura moved behind him to watch his back as the other three spread out around the area.

The seconds slowly ticked by, they waited on baited breath for Sasuke to finish with the seal so that they could get in and run as soon as possible.

Sasuke was almost finished when their headsets crackled on again, but heavy with static, the wing they were in must have been far from the security room.

It crackled again, "Na....o.....un......ts.......r....p."

Naruto adjusted the headset, trying to boost his signal, but all he kept getting was Ten Ten's voice in static. Finally he got irritated at the weak signal and pulled out his own walkie talkie, he didn't like having to use these since they were significantly louder and more noticeable than the headsets, but at least their signal range was longer. He turned the volume low and adjusted the setting to the correct frequency, then switched it on. The crackling sound of bad reception wasn't there anymore, but he still couldn't hear what she was saying, so he turned up the volume a bit and spoke into the mouthpiece, "What'd you say Ten Ten?"

A wet cough followed by the sound of someone spitting out a mouthful of water came over the radio of which Naruto hoped would not be carried down the halls. Naruto rolled his eyes at the new delay, "Ten Ten, get yourself together, what's wrong?"

The air filled with a loud cracking sound from Sasuke as he released a discharge of chakra, fracturing the seal so that it dissipated in a quick wash of flame along the door.

"Run..." Ten Ten's subdued voice came over the radio, a mild gurgling accompanying her.

Naruto's eyes shot wide as he turned around to face Sasuke whose one exposed eye had also flared, "Shit!"

A moment passed where no one could really figure out what to do, while they stood still, a quiet sizzling could be heard. A moment later, the door that Sasuke had been working on blew out, sending the massive stone slab spinning down the corridor.

Sasuke immediately rolled out of the way of the object and blast, only allowing a light wash of flames to even touch him, Sakura however had been just behind him and was unable to move completely out of the way in time. In mid jump, the spinning slab caught her left shoulder, and with a sickening crunch spun her around so that she was caught by the backwards rotation of the door. The second impact struck her shins on an upward spin and threw her backwards like a rag doll into the stone wall several feet behind her. When she hit, blood splattered along the cold, rock wall before she slid back down and slumped to the ground.

Seeing the massive door twirling towards him with lethal intention, Naruto grabbed Hinata around the waist and tried jump out of the way. The idea would have worked flawlessly, if he hadn't forgotten about the extra weight of Sair who was still holding onto Hinata beneath her coat. As a result, when the door flew past, the corner of it clipped the back of Naruto's ankle snapping it like a twig and throwing the three of them back against the ground. Kiba being the furthest away from the door, nimbly jumped to the side and out of harms way.

Hinata grunted as she bounced off the ground, trying to absorb the impact from the child who still keeping to her word, wasn't making a sound. She was however gripping Hinata much tighter than she needed to, causing the Hyuga a fair amount of discomfort.

After the door smashed further down the hall, Sasuke ran to Sakura while Hinata checked on Naruto and Kiba kept watch, they needed to be certain that they could move them before they could make their escape.

Sasuke's face paled more than usual as he looked over Sakura, he wasn't very good with and analysis jutsus, but he didn't think he really needed them. He checked her pulse quickly, praying that the worst hadn't happened, to which he let out a sigh of relief, though weak, she had a steady heartbeat. He shifted her lightly so he could check out her arm and upper torso, her left shoulder blade was shattered causing multiple bone shards to tear through the surface, in addition her collar bone and sternum, as well as four ribs were broken causing her to have difficulties breathing. He pushed up her hair to see a fair amount of blood, it was beginning to clot, but apparently she had torn open her scalp when her head had hit the wall.

He rested her back against the and looked to her legs, he had been so worried about damage to her upper torso, that he hadn't thought about her lower torso, he regretted this delay when he looked down. At first glance it appeared as though she were sitting uncomfortably on her legs, however when he looked closer, he saw that she was certainly sitting on her legs, but they weren't bent at the knees, they were bent 4 inches below the knees and blood was pouring out beneath her.

In a panic, he grabbed for her medical satchel and started rummaging through it, tossing anything useless aside, several jars shattered as he threw them out of the bag. Even though it only took seconds, it felt like hours had passed as he pulled out a bundle of spare ribbon she kept for her hair in case of emergency surgery. He pulled off two and quickly tied them tightly around the highest part of her thighs, he let out a sigh of relief as the arterial bleeding slowed. He stuffed a blood staunching pill into her mouth and rubbed her throat, forcing her to swallow the pill, it wasn't hospital care but it was the best he could do at the moment.

Sasuke stood, relieved and turned to check on the others, Kiba was continuously glancing over his shoulder to check on the status of the other four, while Hinata was striking several pressure points on Naruto's leg to staunch the bleeding from his leg. Naruto was face down on the ground, gritting his teeth against the pain, his right ankle had been snapped backwards so that the flat of his foot was perpendicular to the length of his leg.

"Naruto," she asked after having struck the last point to numb and stop blood flow to his leg, "can you move?"

"Yeah, I'll live." He pushed himself up into a sitting position with his legs out. He turned to look at Sasuke, a look of worry evident, "Is she alright?"

Sasuke shook his head, "No, but she'll live for now, we need to get her back to Konoha immediately."

Kiba turned to them both, "Then what are we waiting for, let's g..." There was a loud cracking sound as Kiba stopped mid sentence. They looked at him in surprise as he dropped to his knees, struggling to breath.

Hinata stood looked around, no one else was in the hallway, so she hastily walked over to Kiba and kneeled down in front of him. "Kiba, what's wrong?" She put her hand against his face and felt his skin was clammy with sweat and twitching repeatedly from some kind of pain.

She heard another loud crack, but this time it was a quick sequence of three of them. She didn't have time to think about it as Naruto came hurtling out of nowhere, catching both of them and slamming against the wall.

After hitting the wall, Kiba slumped face forward to the ground while still struggling for breath, at which point, Hinata saw the large amount of blood coming from his back. She reached out to touch the wound when they heard another loud crack came and something hit the side of her forearm hard, throwing her back to the ground. She slid up the sleeve of the jacket she was wearing and saw a bleeding welt where she had felt the impact.

Not even thinking, she stood up and turned to Sasuke who had slid Sakura around the corner and was now peering around it to look for the potential origin of the attacks. When he saw her stand up without thinking of the consequences he yelled at her, interrupting her questioning thoughts, "GET THE HELL DOWN!"

The next sequence of events played out very slowly in her mind. First was her dawning realization of having made a very, very stupid mistake. Second was the two loud cracks she heard. Third was two arms encircling her waste and something pressing against the length of her back. Fourth was two dull impacts, one to her back around her stomach area, the second to the back of her right thigh. Lastly was the sight of Naruto, sliding off her back to the ground and no longer moving.

In a flash, Sasuke was in front of her, holding out his hand as a blue wall, the size of the hallway appeared. "Shit! Hinata, make sure that idiot's alive." Several more loud cracks sounded accompanied Hinata's nodding as small pellets could be seen bouncing off the wall and rolling away.

She dropped to her knees beside the downed Naruto, seeing a bleeding hole on his lower abdomen and another on his thigh, though after activating her blood limit to see his internal damages, she deemed the leg damage was not substantial. She looked curiously for a moment at the spiral seal of chakra repeatedly flaring on his stomach, but decided she could find out about that later, there were more pressing matters to attend to. Looking around the spiral of chakra, she saw that whatever had struck Naruto had broken through his lowest vertebrae, paralyzing him from the waist down. If they didn't get him back to the Hokage soon, it was likely that the damage would be permanent. She brushed some drops of cold sweat from his forehead and saw that his eyes were rolled back in his head, she figured he had passed out from the pain.

"Mommy?" came a whisper from within her coat, pulling her attention away from her examination, "Is the orange man going to be alright?"

She ground her teeth while thinking of the best way to reply to the two pleading eyes starring up at her, the only thing she could bring herself to say in the end was, "Hopefully."

She turned to face Sasuke who was sweating profusely in the effort it took to maintain his chakra shield, "Whatever hit him fractured his lowest vertebrae, we're going to have to carry him out of here."

"Shit!" He was losing control his chakra shield, it would flicker sporadically at it's edges, momentarily opening small gaps. "Got any ideas Hinata, cause I'm running dry. I can only hold this shield for another minute or two, and even if we were able to escape, I'm sure the fires are spreading and the explosives have gone off. On top of all that the wounded outweigh the able bodied and we still don't know if Ten Ten is alive."

"Oh, your friend is still alive... barely, but she is alive." A voice echoed from far off on the other side of Sasuke's shield, "She put up quite a fight as well. She killed six of my men even after they got the drop on her." A tall thin man with ratty brown hair stepped out of a shadow a ways down the hall and slowly began approaching their shield.

"And you would be?" Sasuke questioned in a mocking tone, in hopes to buy extra time.

"Ah, I go by many names, but you may call me Naguchi." He smiled like a child at an amusement park, deep and disturbing amber eyes twinkling. "So how do you like the effects of our new toys?"

"Toys?" Replied Hinata, confused at the reference.

"Yes, your two male friends seem to have enjoyed them." He giggled gleefully to himself.

"I am definitely not enjoying this." Said the blonde who had apparently not lost consciousness.

Hinata turned in surprise and quickly placed a hand on his chest to stop him from standing, "Don't move, whatever hit you cracked your spine, if you try to move the damage will probably be permanent."

Naruto gently grabbed her wrist and slid her hand off of his chest, then very slowly and shakily standing up, drawing impressed and confused looks from the other three onlookers.
Hinata just stared for a moment before she could bring herself to talk again, "Naruto... how?" She looked down at his ankle that less than a minute ago had been snapped clean backwards but was now flat and set properly.

He just laughed at the question, "I'll tell you some day Hinata, I promise, until then just stick with saying I heal really fast."

Sasuke arched his eyebrow at him, "Your foot was almost backwards less than three minutes ago, and now you're standing."

He sighed, now was not the time to be questioned, "I'll tell you what," he sighed sadly to himself, "I'll tell you two all about it when we get home, acceptable for you?" He saw Sasuke nod, so he moved his attention back to his task at hand. Turning to face Naguchi, he stumbling slightly as he still wasn't able to walk properly yet. "So what did you do with the two from the sand?"

"Ah, so that's why you were here." The man looked beside himself with glee, "Well, have you ever heard the story where people who eat their enemies can gain their strengths?" The look of disgust that crossed Naruto's face answered the question for him, so he continued, "Well it unfortunately doesn't work, however using certain techniques that I've found allow me to gain a persons knowledge if I eat a part of them."

Naruto felt the bile rise in his throat, but held it down, however the sound of Hinata behind him gagging made it all the more difficult to resist. "So," He swallowed down the once again rising tide, "You ate them?"

"Mostly, yes. There are a lot of people here who needed to benefit from their knowledge."

Naruto stumbled forward so that he stood in just behind the now heavily flickering blue wall, "You're a sick man."

Naguchi grinned even wider, "Why thank you, but complimenting me will get you nowhere, when your pretty little shield comes down, we're going to take you in and take what we need from you as well. Then if you're still alive, maybe we'll experiment on you as well."

"You really think we'd let you take us?" Sasuke interjected spitefully.

"Willingly, no. But I'm sure by now you should have at least started to notice how heavy the air is and how hard it is to breath."

The three looked around, studying their own breathing for a moment. Their breathing had become quick and shallow, if it hadn't been for the suppressants they had taken, they'd probably already be unconscious, as it was it was probably only a matter of time.

Naguchi cackled at their looks of realization, "You seem fairly resistant to the poison, but it should only need another minute or two before you lose consciousness, the ventilation system is actually quite wonderful for delivering poisons around the complex." Then to his amazement, Naruto smiled broadly.

"Then I have one more question for you," Naguchi was still surprised by Naruto's immediate change in demeanor so he took two steps back from the wall and waited for the blonde to speak, "Are you the only one who knows how to perform the technique to gain others knowledge?"

"I'm the only one who can do it safely, but others know the theo..." With an ear-splitting screech the chakra shield shattered and vanished as a streak of blonde and orange leapt through it and landed in front of Naguchi, his hands folded into a seal.

"Thanks, that's all I needed to know, Toppuu Saikuron no Jutsu!" He slammed his palm into the ground and a whirling mass of wind tore up into the ceiling, encircling the two and blocking them from sight. The whirlwind expanded to fill the width of the hall and began to grow in height, drilling into the ceiling. While the massive whirlwind ground through stone and chiseled at the walls. They could hear the loud cracks from the weapons that the enemy had been using go off multiple times, mingling with the grinding sound of the wind. A moment later, the whirlwind streaked red as a spatter of liquid was tossed from it, then returned to it's opaque white color.

Sasuke slumped to his knees, exhausted but still trying to figure a way out of the current situation, "Hey Hinata."

"Yes?" She breathed heavily, she wanted to help Naruto, but she couldn't move her legs anymore from the poison in the air.

"Do you have any ideas?" His own breathing was becoming worse, he could still move though, if only a little.

She looked off towards the massive, opaque spire of wind that Naruto had formed, "None." She said heavy hearted, "I don't even know how he can keep fighting at this point," She unconsciously wrapped her arms around the small sleeping form that was huddled inside her coat.

Sasuke turned to stare at it as well, wondering why the bastard had gone and put up his last line of defense. They had run out of luck and he couldn't think of any way that they could get out in their current condition.

The loud crack of their weapons continued, but among the sounds of the wind and weapons, Sasuke began to hear a separate grinding sound coming from above. He watched the ceiling intently, sparing only an occasional glance at Hinata who had slipped into a half conscious state. Slowly, he saw cracks begin to form along the ceiling as bits of stone began to crumble above them, he stood and moved back further, half dragging Hinata along so that nothing would fall on her.

After several more seconds, what sounded like an explosive tag went off and ceiling debris cascaded down near where they were just before. He saw two people drop down among the debris cloud and after a moment of dust clearing, he saw that it was Naruto... twice.

"What the hell?" Sasuke couldn't think of anything else to say.

The Naruto's grinned at his shock as one of them spoke, "You forgot that I replaced two patrols. Anyway, I was able to figure out where you were because of her." He pointed at Hinata who was still half conscious from the poisons effects.

Sasuke was about to question this when it dawned on him, "You tracked her by the hair?" he asked as if to verify his thoughts.

Naruto nodded as the other clone quickly moved to grab Sakura, "You're getting out of here now, we summoned Gamabunta outside and he'll take you all back to Konoha as fast as possible."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the blonde, "You're not coming are you?"

Naruto's smile faded, "I can't, as it is I'm forcing myself to stay conscious to keep the shield up and these clones long enough to get you out, and summoning big gama pretty much tapped me out. We're going to help you guys get out and probably don't have more than another few minutes." Two more Narutos dropped down the hole and went to pick up Kiba and Hinata. "Come on Sasuke, get up there, we're on a time limit."

Sasuke wanted to fight back against Naruto's decision, but he couldn't, he was right and there was no other way that he could think of. He started to climb through the whole but looked back, "You promised you'd tell us about, your oddities when we got back."

Naruto looked away, "Think of it as a mystery to remember me by after I'm gone."

Sasuke wanted to snap, but he couldn't, he just looked away and climbed up the hole.

Outside, the massive form of Gamabunta took up much of the landscape, Sasuke saw Kiba and Sakura were tied down to the massive frogs coat and the four clones were standing around waiting. A moment later, the last two clones emerged from the hole, one carrying Hinata who was gradually waking up, and the other carrying Sair who unaware of the situation, snuggled comfortably into Naruto's chest.

Sasuke looked up at the clone carrying Sair, "Ten Ten?"

He looked away, "I have no way of finding her, and we're not going to last long enough to search the facility. I'm sorry."

Sasuke had expected that answer, but needed someone else to say it. Sasuke walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "You know I can't forgive you for this." The clone just nodded, "If I didn't know that you'd knock me out and stuff me on the giant frog, I wouldn't let you send us out of here without you."

Naruto betrayed his morose expression and smirked, "You know I would. Anyway, go, please... and tell Neji... I'm sorry."

Sasuke understood, he slipped the little girl into his own arms and walked off towards the waiting toad as the empty handed clone puffed away into smoke.

The remaining Naruto lightly shook Hinata awake, she wasn't to deep in sleep so she woke up easily. Groggily, she reached up to Naruto, putting a hand on his cheek to feel if he was real, "Naruto? I had a dream that something bad happened."

Naruto set her down on her feet, her hand still against his face, "It did." He reached up and gently moved her hand from his face. "I'm not coming back Hinata, I can't. I'm keeping my clones for the moment so I can say my goodbyes."

"Your what?" Her eyes widened in dawning realization of his words meaning, "B-b-b-but Na-Naruto, you c-c-can't stay!" She grabbed at his collar, pleading, pulling him down to face her.

He tried to turn away, but she kept forcing him to look at her, "I'm sorry Hinata, there's nothing I can do."

Tears leaked down her cheeks, all her normal elegant composure completely lost as she shook him by the collar and yelled at him "DAMN IT! Why? I don't want you to go! I want you to stay with me! I don't want to lose you..." Her words surprised him and hit hard, He slid his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"I'm sorry Hinata, I have no choice. Because of me we've already lost one, I can't let anyone else get hurt. Apologize to your cousin for me... and tell Sakura I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye." He released her so that he could step away, but as soon as he did, her arms snapped around his waist and she burrowed her head into his chest.

He kneeled down, sliding her grip further up so that it was just beneath his arms and her head was on his shoulder, and began to stroke her hair to calm her. He knew he was running out of time, but he had to get her to go willingly.

"Hinata." She made some kind of muffled noise against his shoulder to state she was listening. "There are others who need you right now and if you're willing, I want to give you one last order on this mission."

She pulled back her head to look him in the eyes, they were sad but still as intense as always, "Anything!" She stated resolutely.

He was glad to have people like Hinata who respected and cared about him, "I want you to take care of Sair." She blinked, confused as to why he was asking her to do this. He recognized the look on her face and continued, "She's an orphan, when everything's said and done, she'll have to go through life the same way I did. She's already had to see such horrible things, I want her to at least be happy..."

She stared at him, not wanting to move, not wanting to admit or accept anything, but after a moment, she let go of him and stepped back. She looked to the ground, "I'll convince my father to allow me to take care of her."

He smiled, "Thank you Hinata. You need to go... I'm running out of juice."

She started to turn away, but stopped, "This is the last time I'm going to see you isn't it..."

He stood up straight again, not wanting to answer but inevitably caved under the mounting pressure, "Yes." was all he could bring himself to say.

In an instant, he was winded and on the ground, Hinata kneeling on his chest. She leaned down and kissed him chastely on the lips before rolling off of him and running towards the others, his own coat flapping around on her shoulders as she ran away.

He watching the disappearing figure, a mixture a happiness and regret mingling in his eyes as he whispered to himself, "Goodbye... Hinata." then disappeared in a puff of smoke.


*************************************************
Toppuu Saikuron no Jutsu - Cyclonic Blast

How to pronounce Sair's name, take the word "Hair" and replace the H with an S.


Sorry I ran a little late this week for my update, I recently discovered the joys of Fallout 3 and have been a little distracted :P But I'll try and continue to update every weekend and I hope you all enjoy the story as it develops. If you have questions, comments or anything of the like then please review and tell me what you think.

Thanks for reading!
The_Keeper